Changelog

This update focuses on stability and reliability. More reliable SFTP connections, including servers reached by hostname: EmpiricCommander now tries IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in turn instead of giving up on the first one, so connections that used to fail with a network error now go through. A cleaner terminal: the built-in terminal now has proper padding so text no longer sits flush against the left edge. Fixed an edge case in optional iCloud connection sync where a connection deleted on one device while sync was off could reappear later. Additional performance and reliability improvements across file transfers and remote connections. Thanks for using EmpiricCommander. Questions or feedback? Reach us from the About window.

**Workspaces.** Save a full dual-pane layout - both sides, every tab, sort and view settings - as a named workspace, then switch between them with **Ctrl-Cmd-1** through **Ctrl-Cmd-9**. Reorder them, and the app remembers the one you used last. **Encrypted archives.** Password-protected ZIP archives now open and extract in place (classic ZipCrypto). **Steadier cloud connections.** Large downloads from cloud storage are more reliable and show real progress instead of sitting at zero. **Connection sync (optional).** Turn on iCloud sync in Settings to keep your saved connections in step across your devices. Passwords stay in the keychain, and it stays off until you switch it on. **Data-safety in Compare and Copy.** When a file on a drive cannot be read, Compare no longer treats the two folders as identical and Copy no longer skips it silently - unreadable items are called out so an incomplete copy can never look complete. **Stability.** Folder-copy is always cancelable, a canceled transfer is no longer reported as a failure, the workspace keyboard shortcuts are fixed, and deleting a saved workspace now works from the Manage sheet. Plus a number of transfer and reliability edge cases cleaned up.

**Connect to Windows shares, NAS drives, and Mac File Sharing.** EmpiricCommander now speaks SMB natively. Browse your NAS or a shared folder on another computer, copy files in both directions, and stream large files without loading them into memory. Nearby servers are discovered automatically - most of the time you just click and connect. What's new: - **SMB network shares.** Connect to any Windows, NAS, or macOS shared folder. Large transfers stream with live progress and cancel cleanly. Servers that only offer the obsolete SMB1 protocol are refused with a clear explanation instead of a silent downgrade. - **Keep browsing while you transfer.** A large SMB copy no longer blocks the same share - navigate, list folders, and queue more work while it runs. - **Verify contents in Compare Folders.** Re-check same-size files byte-for-byte with SHA-256 and catch silent corruption a size-only check would miss. Compare also gained one-click "Copy Left-only" / "Copy Right-only" buttons. - **Folder Sync across drives.** Sync between local folders and network shares in both directions, with content verification after each copy. - **Sort your way.** New Sort menu in the toolbar: name, size, date, kind, ascending or descending, and Folders First on or off. - **Aliases and symlinks navigate in-app.** A link to a folder opens right in EmpiricCommander - never a surprise Finder window - and a link to a file opens its target. Cloud folders from ~/Library/CloudStorage get their own sidebar section. - **Packages open like Finder.** Apps and other bundles (.app, .xcodeproj, .key) open in their owning application; "Show Package Contents" browses inside when you need to. - **Connection presets.** Setting up Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, and other S3-compatible services is a two-field job. - **Safer big previews.** Opening a large remote file asks before downloading, then streams it - archives open straight into the built-in archive browser. Fixes and reliability: - A cancelled copy or move never leaves a partial file behind, and a cancelled move never touches the original - on every connection type. - Multi-file transfers from a network share no longer stall after the first file. - Editing a connection reconnects the open pane immediately - no more retrying with the old settings. - Network timeouts everywhere: a blocked or dead connection reports an error instead of spinning forever. - Dozens of smaller stability and polish fixes across transfers, browsing, and previews.

**New:** Finder aliases and symlinks now open inside the app - double-clicking an alias to a folder navigates into it instead of bouncing to Finder. A new **Cloud Folders** sidebar section lists your Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and other cloud folders managed by macOS. **Folder Compare:** new opt-in **Verify contents (SHA-256)** mode re-checks same-size files by hashing their actual bytes - catches silent corruption from bit rot or failing drives, with progress and cancel. **WebDAV:** fixed "Test Connection" reporting "No access to this folder" for valid Nextcloud settings, wrong-password errors are now clearly labeled, and connections use https on every port. **Security hardening:** encrypted connections enforced for WebDAV, S3, and Azure custom endpoints, protection against malicious archive and server-provided file names, and temporary download files are now cleaned up automatically.

**Smoother large transfers.** Copying or uploading very large files - multi-GB videos, disk images, backups - now streams to the destination with a small, steady memory footprint instead of loading the whole file at once. Big transfers stay smooth and reliable. **External folders and USB drives on iPhone and iPad.** The companion iPhone and iPad apps can now browse folders from the Files app and external USB/SD drives in place, and move files to a server without leaving copies - the same workflows macOS already supports across the suite. **Fixes and polish.** General reliability and interface refinements.

**Faster, smarter Folder Sync.** Identical files are now correctly skipped instead of being copied again every run, so backing up folders of projects is dramatically faster. Cancel and Pause now take effect immediately during a sync. **Open password-protected ZIPs.** EmpiricCommander asks for the password and lets you browse and extract encrypted ZIP archives, instead of showing an empty folder. **Unzip several archives at once.** Select multiple archives and extract each into its own folder in a single step. **Summarize PDFs with on-device AI.** Open a PDF in the preview and get a short, private summary - skim a long document without reading it all. Runs entirely on device. **Config files now preview as text.** Dotfiles and extensionless developer files - `.gitignore`, `.npmrc`, `.env.local`, `Dockerfile`, `Makefile`, `LICENSE` and more - open in the built-in preview instead of falling back to a blank Quick Look. Plus the usual fixes and polish. On-device AI needs a Mac with Apple Intelligence (macOS 26); the PDF summary covers the start of long documents. Everything else works as before.

**Open password-protected ZIPs.** EmpiricCommander now asks for the password and lets you browse and extract encrypted ZIP archives, instead of showing an empty folder. **Unzip several archives at once.** Select multiple archives and extract each into its own folder in a single step. **Summarize PDFs with on-device AI.** Open a PDF in the preview and get a short, private summary - skim a long document without reading it all. Runs entirely on device. **Config files now preview as text.** Dotfiles and extensionless developer files - `.gitignore`, `.npmrc`, `.env.local`, `Dockerfile`, `Makefile`, `LICENSE` and more - open in the built-in preview instead of falling back to a blank Quick Look. Plus the usual fixes and polish. On-device AI needs a Mac with Apple Intelligence (macOS 26); the PDF summary covers the start of long documents. Everything else works as before.

**AI Summary for your files.** Select one or more text files and get a short, private summary of each - skim code, config, JSON, CSV, or Markdown without opening them. Available from the right-click menu. Runs entirely on device. **Find space hogs in plain words.** In Disk Usage, just describe what you're after - "over 100 MB not touched in a year", "big videos", "files older than 6 months" - and the view filters to match. Great for cleanup. **HTML files now render as pages** in the preview, not raw source. Locked down for safety - no scripts run and nothing loads from the network. Plus a larger, resizable preview window and reliability fixes for non-English text files. On-device AI needs a Mac with Apple Intelligence (macOS 26); everything else works as before. Note: the on-device model doesn't support every language yet (Romanian content, for example, can't be summarized) - we surface a clear message when that happens.

**Rename files just by describing them.** Batch Rename has a new on-device AI command bar: type what you want in plain words - "prefix source files with code_" - and EmpiricCommander picks the right rename operation and fills in the details, with a live preview before anything changes. It runs entirely on your Mac, so it is free, needs no account, and your filenames never leave the device. Requires macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence; the full manual controls are always available. **A clearer, safer rename engine.** Batch Rename is rebuilt around first-class operations - add prefix or suffix, remove text, digits, symbols, or spaces, change case, number, and change extension - with regex kept as a manual escape hatch. No operation can drop a file's extension by accident, and the live preview, conflict detection, and undo still have your back. **Summarize and explain files in preview.** On a text, code, Markdown, or log file, Rich Preview can now summarize it - or explain what a script does - in an inline panel above the content, powered by Apple's on-device Foundation Models. Read-only and private: the file is never modified and nothing is sent to the cloud. Requires macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence.

**Workspaces now save every tab, not just the active one.** Saving a workspace captures all the tabs open in both panes - folders, remote connections, and terminals - together with your split layout and which tab was active. Reopening it restores the whole setup, so you can jump between complete working contexts in one click. The old "Update Paths" action is now "Update Tabs" and re-captures the full state. Workspaces you saved before this update keep working and convert to a single tab per side automatically.

**More from Empiric Apps.** The About window now features our other native Mac apps so you can discover them in one place. **Window title stays in sync.** Fixed a case where the title bar could show a stale license or trial status after launch. Plus behind-the-scenes improvements.

Fixes a sign-in issue where a Mac that had been offline for a few days could get bounced to a re-login prompt even though the Pro license was still valid. Being offline no longer signs you out - your license stays active and the app reconnects on its own when the network is back. Also cleaned up the sign-in dialog layout and made offline sign-in attempts fail fast instead of hanging.

Clicking files in a remote SFTP folder no longer freezes the UI. The file list, the preview side panel, and the right-click context menu were all running local filesystem checks (git status, permissions, symlinks) on paths that look local but aren't - on macOS this triggered the system auto-mount handler under `/home` and blocked the main thread for hundreds of milliseconds per click. - **Snappier remote browsing.** Selecting files in SFTP / FTP / S3 / WebDAV / Dropbox / OneDrive / GDrive folders is instant again. Right-click also opens immediately instead of stuttering.

Polished the transfer overlay so a single copy no longer shows the same progress in three places at once. - **Cleaner transfer feedback.** When the full-detail progress modal is open the queue summary above the shelf and the bottom-right status pill both step out of the way. Minimise the modal and the ambient indicators come back so you can click to re-expand.

SFTP downloads now stream chunk-by-chunk instead of buffering the entire remote file in RAM before writing to disk. The "0% for minutes then jump to 100%" symptom on multi-gigabyte downloads is gone - progress now reflects real download speed from the first chunk. - **SFTP streaming downloads.** Memory footprint bounded to one 1 MB chunk regardless of file size. Multi-GB downloads no longer OOM on iPhone/iPad and the progress bar starts moving immediately. - **Clearer transfer overlay.** The bytes line ("0 B / 200 MB") now shows as soon as the total is known, instead of staying blank until the first chunk arrives. Speed (MB/s) and ETA populate per chunk.

**Transfer progress now reflects real upload speed.** The progress bar previously pegged at 100% the moment your local file was read and then sat there for minutes while the upload finished - now bytes are counted as they actually land on the remote. Affects FTP, SFTP, Azure, Dropbox, WebDAV, Google Drive, OneDrive, and SMB transfers. **Multi-gigabyte SFTP and SMB uploads no longer load the whole file into memory.** Chunks are pulled from the source one at a time and pushed straight to the wire, so memory footprint stays bounded regardless of file size. Fixes out-of-memory crashes on iPhone / iPad when sending large videos or disk images. **Duplicate scan filter now remembers what you set per folder.** First time on `~/Downloads` you tune the exclude globs and minimum size; the next visit reuses them. New **Skip this dialog next time** toggle starts the scan immediately on reopen - click **Edit Filter** in the results header to come back.

**Archive (ZIP) creation no longer freezes when the destination already exists.** Picking "Zip" on a folder whose `.zip` already sits alongside it now asks Replace / Keep Both / Skip instead of hanging on a stuck progress dialog. **Update dialog renders release notes as Markdown.** Inline emphasis, code spans, and bullets format properly; users on 1.5.3+ will see this nicely from 1.5.4 onwards. **Telemetry endpoint sanitization.** Defense-in-depth: the diagnostic telemetry uploader strips query strings and fragments before recording, matching the server-side `stripQuery()` already in place.

### What's new in 1.5.2 - **Transfer panel: honest progress UX.** Scan phase now shows an indeterminate spinner with a live "Scanning <folder>: N file(s) / M folder(s)" label instead of a stuck 0% bar over a misleading "Zero KB / X KB" line. - **Large remote copies driven by real wire bytes.** SFTP transfers > 10 MB drive the progress bar from `TransferManager` byte counts; previously the bar jumped from 0% to 100% at the end. Speed (MB/s) and ETA now populate live. - **Cancel feedback.** Clicking the X on an active transfer flips the label to "Cancelling…" and dims the button. In-flight remote calls (FTP LIST, SFTP recursive walk) can take a few seconds to honor `Task.cancel()`; the new state removes the silent-freeze feel. - **Transfers panel auto-sizes to content height.** Single active transfer no longer reserves a giant empty pane below the row.

v1.5.1 - stability + Dupes upgrade SFTP cross-provider copy: scan + copy now run in a parallel pipeline, eliminating the multi-minute "Analysing" stall on multi-thousand-file folders and the Citadel.SFTPMessage.Status error 1 (EOF) some long batches hit. Theme picker: Light/Dark/System now correctly disables itself when the selected Color Theme has a fixed scheme (no more invisible icons when forcing Light mode with Midnight / Rosé Pine / Dracula). Duplicate Finder: scans run in the background. Close the window or tap "Run in Background" and the scan continues - progress shown in the bottom status footer. Reopen Dupes on the same folder and the view re-attaches to the running job. Duplicate Finder: scan options before starting. Include only selected file categories (Images / Video / Audio / Documents / Code / Archives / Other), set min/max size, and exclude glob patterns. Eight sensible default excludes ship out of the box (node_modules, .git, build, .next, dist, .cache, Pods, DerivedData).

Git Projects (macOS). When the active pane is inside a Git repository, EmpiricCommander now shows a branch chip, a Git toolbar menu (Status, Commit with Stage All, Discard All, Stash, Switch Branch, Pull/Push/Fetch), a Log master-detail view with a branch/merge topology graph, a per-file context menu (Stage / Unstage / Discard / Show Diff), and SF Symbol status badges on file rows. Built on AsyncSwiftGit and a forked static-libgit2 with libgit2 1.9.1. Docker / Lima / Colima containers (macOS). A new toolbar menu auto-discovers every Docker, Colima, and Lima socket on the machine and lists their containers. Click any container to open a new tab at its root and browse its filesystem read-only. Locked Shelf. A new encrypted compartment inside the Shelf for credentials, recovery codes, and anything you don't want sitting in plaintext. AES-GCM at rest with a key derived from your passphrase via PBKDF2. Available on macOS, iPad, and iPhone. iOS Files app integration (iPad, iPhone). EmpiricCommander connections now appear under Locations in the system Files app. All six remote providers (WebDAV, SFTP, S3, Google Drive, Azure, FTP) enumerate against the live backend through the new File Provider extension, so other apps can share, import, and export through EmpiricCommander without leaving Files. Disk Usage drill-down + Top-10 (macOS, iPad). The treemap now supports drilling into subfolders with a path stack, breadcrumb, and Up button. A Top-10 sidebar lists the largest items in the current scan. Right-click → Delete with confirmation works in both bar-list and treemap modes. Faster launch. The "Checking license..." screen is gone for users with a cached license or active trial. Verification runs in the background and the app opens instantly. Google Drive integration redesigned. EmpiricCommander now uses Google's privacy-first drive.file scope: you pick the specific files or folders you want EmpiricCommander to access through Google's native Picker. The app never sees your full Drive. See the new docs page at /empiric-commander/docs/google-drive for the walkthrough. Existing Google Drive connections from v1.4 show an orange "Update Access" button on first launch; click it once to re-authorize under the new scope. Localized paywall pricing. The in-app paywall now shows the correct price for your region, read from StoreKit. The hardcoded $29.99 USD string is gone. Security & dependencies. Rebuilt the git stack on libgit2 1.9.1, libssh2 1.11.1, and OpenSSL 3.0.16, closing CVE-2023-48795 (Terrapin) and the libgit2 ≤ 1.6 heap-corruption advisory. Forked static-libgit2 to mburlac/static-libgit2 with explicit MIT licensing. Citadel upgraded 0.9.2 → 0.12.1. Every dependency is MIT, Apache, or BSD; no GPL/AGPL/LGPL anywhere, and every pinned version is CVE-free at release time.

First iOS and iPadOS release. Now available on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/empiriccommander/id6763745217. Dual-pane on iPad, single-pane on iPhone with Browse / Shelf / Cloud / Settings tabs. 8 storage backends out of the box: Local, iCloud Drive, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3 and S3-compatible, Azure Blob, and Google Drive. macOS 1.4.1 changes - macOS Help menu now opens documentation on empiricapps.com instead of macOS's built-in "Help isn't available" dialog. Cmd+? launches the docs landing page; Keyboard Shortcuts and Release Notes have dedicated items; Send Feedback opens mail to support@empiricapps.com. - Dragging a file out of a ZIP, 7z, or RAR archive into Terminal or Finder now pastes the real extracted file path. Previous builds pasted either the in-archive path or SwiftUI's empty drag-preview cache directory. - Multi-device session isolation: signing in on Mac no longer kicks your iPhone, and vice versa. The same fix applies to email-login flows, which now bind to hardware identity from the start. - Google Drive resumable upload for reliable large-file transfers. The transfer panel auto-dismisses when the queue is empty. 7-day free trial. $29.99 one-time purchase covers all v1.x updates and runs on up to 3 devices (1 Mac + 1 iPad + 1 iPhone).

Bug fixes and improvements.

Professional dual-pane file manager for macOS, iPad, and iPhone.